Xu Ze opened his eyes and stared at the dark ceiling above him. Once again, he confirmed that he wasn’t dreaming. He felt noticeably different from before he had fallen asleep. Although his body felt a bit sticky, he had never felt so comfortable before. His entire body felt light, yet filled with strength.
Moreover, it seemed his eyes had undergone some changes as well. Xu Ze turned on the small bedside lamp and looked at the wall. Even without his glasses, his vision was clear. A wave of joy surged within him—his nearsightedness was gone.
“This must all be real!” After pondering for a while, Xu Ze confirmed with a sense of inexplicable delight that everything that had just happened was real. He had indeed encountered that strange system, inexplicably becoming its host, and his nearsightedness had been cured.
He glanced at the three sleeping figures on the nearby beds—Gangzi and the others. Xu Ze quietly got up, habitually reaching for his glasses on the bedside table. But he froze. He wasn’t nearsighted anymore, yet when he put on his glasses, there was no distortion in his vision.
Had someone replaced his glasses? Xu Ze took them off and inspected them. They were indeed his, but the lenses were now plain glass, no longer the corrective lenses with a 250-degree prescription.
“Hah… future technology? Even this?” Xu Ze sighed softly. To avoid drawing attention, he still put on the glasses.
After getting up, Xu Ze noticed that his blanket and bedsheet were stained with gray marks. These gray stains, resembling grease, seemed to have oozed out of his body.
Recalling what the system—Xiao Dao—had said about performing a basic genetic optimization and constructing an energy circulation system, Xu Ze guessed these changes were the result of those procedures.
Shaking his head helplessly, he headed to the bathroom to wash off the sticky feeling. He brushed his teeth, washed his face, and then started getting dressed.
However, as he put on his clothes, Xu Ze frowned. His clothes felt slightly tighter today. Had they shrunk? He didn’t dwell on it too much and carefully removed the bedsheet and blanket, tossing them into a bucket. It took him half an hour to wash them and hang them outside the window to dry.
After finishing, he checked the time—it was only 5:30 AM. He had no bed to sleep in and no desire to sleep either. Remembering what Xiao Dao had mentioned about energy circulation, Xu Ze eagerly sat down on his chair, closed his eyes, and focused on the spot three centimeters below his navel.
Xu Ze knew this spot well—in traditional Chinese medicine, it was called the Qihai acupoint. Many martial arts legends claimed it was the storage point for internal energy. Xu Ze had never been naive enough to believe it was the key to cultivating internal strength.
But now, after concentrating for a while, Xu Ze clearly felt a strange flow of energy hidden within the Qihai area. As he focused, the energy began to move slowly.
Recalling the meridian diagram Xiao Dao had shown him earlier, Xu Ze attempted to guide this energy flow along the so-called Ren and Du meridians.
However, this process was far more difficult than Xu Ze had imagined. The energy flow met significant resistance, advancing at an extremely slow pace despite his full effort.
It took Xu Ze immense effort to complete one full cycle of circulation. But after finishing one cycle, he felt noticeably lighter, and during the process, a refreshing coolness spread throughout his body.
As Xu Ze continued the energy circulation, countless invisible light particles around him began to converge toward his body, passing through his muscles and bones, merging into the mysterious energy cycle.
The cells in his muscles and bones, touched by these light particles, underwent subtle changes, becoming slightly stronger than before.
At the same time, the system program in Xu Ze’s mind sent out a series of messages: “System energy storage accelerating: 11%, 12%… 20%…”
Xu Ze persisted, pushing the energy flow through three full cycles. Just as he began to hear faint sounds nearby and felt the energy flow becoming increasingly difficult to control, he withdrew from the circulation.